Asking the right question

Asking the right question is by far the most important step when it comes to data visualization. What is the answer that you are seeking?

Some of the most common questions that you need to ask yourself before deciding to visualize data are:

• Do I want to observe how well two features are correlated?
• Do I suspect potential outliers in my data that I cannot see unless I visualize my data?
• Do I want to see whether my data shows a particular trend over a period of time?
• Do I want to observe the distribution of individual features/columns in my data?
• Do I want to see whether there are clusters/groups within my data that I can potentially extract value from?
• Do I believe that a visualization can tell my audience a story about the data?

If the answer to any one of these questions is a yes, then you know that you need to visualize your data. The second question...